


Into the Woods

by bluebeholder



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: A Surprise Appearance By The Pineapple Man, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, F/M, Fae & Fairies, Fairy Tale Elements, Happy Ending, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-29
Updated: 2017-06-29
Packaged: 2018-11-20 21:52:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11343843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebeholder/pseuds/bluebeholder
Summary: Newt warned them not to go out on the summer solstice. Tina listened. Queenie didn't, and now she's lost in Fairyland. Luckily for her, one of the Fair Folk is willing to help her out. She expected magic, and bargains, and grave peril--but what she didn't expect was love at first sight. But isn't that what fairy tales are all about?





	Into the Woods

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Crimson_Voltaire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crimson_Voltaire/gifts).



> Written in thanks for a BEAUTIFUL piece of art that Crimson_Voltaire drew for me of the Suitcase Family from over in _a better mirror_. After all the ship teasing I've done there, it's time for me to pay the piper: here's ALL the Queenie/Percival you could ever want. 
> 
> Title is, of course, borrowed from Stephen Sondheim's _Into the Woods_. I am taking lots and lots and LOTS of liberties with mythology here. Please don’t shoot me. This is an exercise in fun summer fairy tales and smut, not an exhaustive mythological treatise. (I know, I know, you all expect better of me,  &c.). Regardless: I hope you enjoy it all!

“They say that the walls between the worlds are thin today,” Newt says. 

“Who says?” Tina asks. 

Newt shrugs. “Everyone,” he says. “Superstitious lot round here, we are.”

The car jolts as they turn a curve in the road. Queenie’s shoulder bumps against the door and she looks out, watching the fields slide past. It’s a golden kind of day, late June. Beautiful. It’s a good time to visit Newt. He’d invited them for two weeks this summer, supposedly so they could all three have a good holiday. In reality, Queenie knows very well that Tina and Newt are going to spend the whole summer looking longingly at each other and trying not to so much as brush pinkies.  
Heathrow had been a fine frenzy, trying to get past customs and get luggage out to the car and get out of the London traffic. But now they’re well on the road into the countryside, out to the house Newt inherited from his parents. Even if it means two weeks with Newt and Tina pining at each other, Queenie’s happy to be here.

“Just don’t leave the road,” Newt advises. “If you go out, anyway. The yard’s fine, mostly, but stepping in a fairy ring is asking for trouble.” 

Tina laughs. “Newt, is there anything we can do?”

Newt sounds very serious. He glances at Queenie in the rearview mirror and left at Tina. “You can do whatever you want tomorrow. But _don’t_ leave the road tonight.”

The silence in the car is frightening. It lasts all the way to the house, and is broken only by Newt irrepressibly bounding out of the car to help them unload. Tina shakes off the mood almost immediately, helping Newt haul things and joking around with him about the sheer number of chickens in the yard and the dogs barking around their feet and the cat in the window. Queenie still feels thoughtful, though, and she pauses just inside the gate to look out at the road. It stretches on past the house, into a wood that looks cool and inviting on this blazing-hot day. 

“Queenie!” Newt calls. 

“Come in and get your shit unpacked!” Tina yells. 

Queenie casts one last look over her shoulder, and then goes inside. 

The thoughts of the wood don’t leave her head, all the way through the rest of the day. They catch up, Tina showing Newt all the photos she’s got of the last three months, Queenie talking about her research, Newt introducing them all to his animals. One of the cats takes a liking to Queenie, and she cuddles it while she listens to Newt softly exclaiming over Tina’s paintings. 

It’s about two in the afternoon when Queenie makes up her mind. Newt is washing up from lunch while Tina sits on the counter, kicking her bare heels against the cabinets. “I’m going for a walk,” Queenie announces, setting the cat down and rising to her feet. 

Newt spins around, hands soapy from dishwater, eyes wide. “You _can’t_!"

“It’s just superstition, honey,” Queenie says firmly. She brushes off her skirt and slides on her sandals. “And I’ll stay on the road, if that makes you feel any better.”

“Newt, she’ll be fine,” Tina says. “It’s just a walk.”

“Don’t go off the road,” Newt insists. “If you’re going to be so stupid—then please, please don’t go off the road.”

The hair on the back of Queenie’s neck stands on end. “I won’t,” she says, and steps out the door. 

Heat hits her like a wave. Fleetingly, Queenie thinks of turning and going back inside. But Newt’s house ain’t exactly air-conditioned, and turning back now would be like admitting defeat. So she walks out of the yard and onto the road, turning toward the wood. It’ll be cooler in the shade anyway. 

When she passes into the shadows of the trees, some of the unbearable heat vanishes. Queenie is really glad that she wore such a wide skirt today, even if Tina had compared her to a housewife from the 1950s. It’s much cooler than anything else she could have worn. Now, the jewelry—the thick, colorful plastic bangles and sparkling earrings—that’s excessive, but Queenie doesn’t care. She should feel awkward, looking like out here in the middle of the countryside with no one to see here. Instead, she feels like she belongs perfectly. 

The road shows no signs of ending any time soon. It bends and Queenie follows it, walking right down the middle. Not one single car passes in the whole time she walks and she feel safe enough from that. Still, as cool and peaceful as the wood is, there’s something strange about the way the green shadows play under the trees. It does feel safer to stay on the road. 

Queenie’s not sure how far she walks on the winding road. The trees get taller and taller, and the shadows deeper and deeper, until it could be twilight. In the deep green it feels like she’s swimming underwater. There are birds calling. If she was an ornithologist, she could identify them. Unfortunately, she’s just a psychology grad student. Birds are not her specialty, unless they’re African gray parrots named Alex. 

A flicker in the deeper darkness of the woods catches Queenie’s eye and she stops. She looks full on at the faint light, dancing strangely in the middle distance. “What is that?” she murmurs to herself.

It jumps and spins, as if it’s three-dimensional, even though light shouldn’t be. It’s green, then gold, then white, then flickering back to green. It’s enchanting. Faintly, Queenie remembers undergraduate anthropology courses about myths and legends, about the ways that people try to explain phenomena like this. Even if it looks like magic, it can’t be. So what is it?

Suddenly, there’s grass under her feet. Queenie startles and looks down. Somehow, without realizing it, she’s walked all the way to the verge of the road. Newt’s warning echoes in her head: _Don’t go off the road_.

But the light is dancing out in the darkness between the trees, and it’s beautiful. There are ferns and lilies of the valley growing in the patches of shifting sunlight. Queenie ain’t superstitious like Newt, and she’s never been one for fairy stories, but there is something definitely magical about this wood. It’s enigmatic, mute with an air of whispering, _come and find out_. 

Even if it seems ill-advised, Queenie keeps going. She wades through knee-deep ferns, keeping her eyes on the shifting light ahead. It seems always to be just ahead of her, never close enough to touch. It teases, darting this way and that. She should turn back, but by this point Queenie is just determined to figure out what that light is. It seems to be laughing at her.

She gains ground on it, able to see that it is some kind of ball of light, trailing sparks behind it. It’s nearly close enough to touch. She stretches out an arm, to catch it, and it’s just near enough that her fingertips brush the cold surface.

It winks out. 

Queenie freezes in place. She looks side to side, as if the light had flown away, but it ain’t there. 

“Oh, well,” Queenie says aloud. She turns around, to walk back to the road, and her heart sinks. 

The road is nowhere in sight. 

It’s just trees, huge trees, impossibly big trees, and endless shadowy green. 

She has no idea where she is. Queenie is just about to start panicking when a man’s voice comes from behind her. “Lost, are you?”

Queenie jumps nearly a foot in the air. 

She whirls around, frightened half to death, only to freeze when she sees the man who spoke. He’s tall, very tall, so much that Queenie has to look up to meet his eyes. He’s leaning against a tree, so casual that they might as well have been standing in a Starbucks chatting. Although he’s in regular jeans and a shirt, he’s barefoot. But she barely notices that: she can hardly look away from his face. She may never have seen anyone so beautiful in her life. She couldn’t tell you what he looks like, not really, because his eyes are so captivating that she’s sure she’d drown in them, if she stared too long. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, after an unearthly-long pause, “did I startle you?”

Some of Queenie’s wits return to her. “Yes, you did,” she says, remembering what one is supposed to do when confronted with strange men in the woods. “And I’m okay on my own.”

The man smiles, lines crinkling at the corners of his eyes. Queenie’s knees go weak. What is happening to her? “Pardon my forwardness, but you look rather lost to me.”

“I was just—exploring,” Queenie says. 

“A dangerous thing, on the Solstice,” the man says. 

Queenie folds her arms. “Only if you’re superstitious.”

“You aren’t?”

“No. Everything has an explanation,” she says, looking at him again. God, those eyes! 

He shakes his head, folding his arms. “Around here, I think they call superstition ‘wisdom’.” 

And oh, that voice. That voice! It makes Queenie’s spine tingle. Low, a little rough, an accent that might be Irish but doesn’t sound quite right. 

“Well, either way, I’m not lost!” Queenie says. 

“Liar,” he says. 

Queenie feels like she might be blushing. “I misplaced the road, that’s all.”

He throws back his head and laughs. It’s infectious and she can’t help laughing too. He looks at her with eyes that might actually be sparkling and says, “Well, then, may I help you find it?” He extends a hand, and Queenie stares at it. The air is shivering. She’s hot and cold all over and she knows, she knows in her bones that there’s something terrible about this decision. 

“I don’t even know your name,” she says. Her voice is shaking a little.

“I’ve been rude,” he says, and inclines his head. “I apologize. May I ask your name, lady?”

“Queenie,” she says. “Queenie Goldstein.”

He tilts his head a little. “Queenie,” he says, as though tasting the word. “A fitting name.”

“And who are you?”

There’s a pause. “I think…well, why not? Call me Graves,” he says. “It’s as good a name as any, for what I am and what you think me to be.”

It doesn’t make sense. None of that makes sense. It feels like she’s stepped into a dream. “All right, Graves,” Queenie says. “You promise you’ll get me back to the road?”

“I promise,” he says, suddenly serious. “Though it may be perilous—on my life, I promise your safe return home.”

She takes his hand. It’s warm, and solid, and makes thing seem a little less surreal. “I trust you.”

“That is not particularly wise,” Graves says. His hand tightens around hers and the smile vanishes as quick as the light had. “You must never trust anyone here, do you understand? Unless they’ve sworn you some solemn oath, _never_ place your trust in them.”

“…I think I’d better not go with you,” Queenie says, suddenly nervous. She’d rather take her chances with the forest, thanks very much. 

With great delicacy, Graves bends at the waist and lifts Queenie’s hand to his lips. He kisses the back of it very gently and Queenie feels like she’s going to jump out of her skin. “I swore an oath,” he says. “You will get back. You may trust me in that.”

For some reason that’s so far beyond her it might as well be on the moon, Queenie believes that he’s telling the truth. “Let’s go,” she says. 

He leads her through the woods, between the trees. It’s a long way, and Graves seems a taciturn man. Queenie is quite content to just look around at everything. The great trees with bark so black that it might be blue, stretching up higher than should be possible in this simple English wood. The ocean of pale green ferns, waist-deep now, brushing coiled fronds against her legs and arms. The bushes of what Graves informs her are deadly nightshade, black berries winking under green leaves. 

“I didn’t think I’d come this far,” Queenie remarks, after fifteen minutes of walking.

“You didn’t,” Graves says, pausing and looking down at her.

“What?”

Graves gestures around at the endless forest. “Did you think you were still in your world?” he asks. “You are not simply within the forest, you are… _within the within_ of the forest. The Otherworld, or at least a very small piece of it.”

Queenie shivers. “No way!”

“Nothing is impossible,” Graves says. “In another wood to the East, the last of the unicorns plays in her eternal twilight. A dragon sleeps beneath the hills and dreams of its golden hoard. There are maidens in the skins of seals, there are giants in the sky, and you, my lady, have walked into a fairy tale.”

And it _should be impossible_ , but Queenie believes him. “Then…what are you?” she asks, only a very small quiver in her voice. 

Graves slants a smile at her. For the first time, she notices his delicately pointed ears, the cat-slit pupils of his eyes, the length of his fingers twined with hers. “Do you not know?”

For a moment, Queenie can’t find her voice. “You’re a…” ‘Fairy’ might be accurate, but it seems the wrong word for someone like him.

“One of the Fair Folk,” Graves suggests. His voice is solemn, but Queenie gets the sense that he might be laughing at her. “The Good People? The People of the Hills?”

“Yes,” Queenie whispers.

His smile takes on a hard edge. “I am no Oberon, no Goblin King, no Erlking, certainly not one of the Tuatha Dé Danann. But I am fae, that much is true.”

Queenie pulls away from him, clutching her hand to her chest. Her heart is pounding so hard that it feels like it’s shaking her ribs. “I’ll find my way alone.”

“Unwise,” Graves says. “Not all of the Otherworld is pleasant and it is easy for a mortal woman to become lost. Besides…we made a pact. I made you an oath; you followed me of your own free will. You are bound to follow me until I fulfill my promise to you.”

“You can’t make me stay,” Queenie says. 

Graves shrugs. His clothes have changed, or maybe Queenie’s just noticing them differently. He wouldn’t look out of place at a Renaissance festival now, but it’s not costume. It’s real. He still looks young, late thirties or early forties, but his eyes are _ancient_. “I would not have to,” he says. “I could stand right here while you turned and ran, and your feet would bring you back to me. And if I tried to leave you here alone, I would find myself frozen in place until I took your hand again. We have laid an enchantment on ourselves and there is no power in Heaven or Hell that could break it.”

“You should have warned me!” Queenie snaps, finally finding her voice. 

“I believed that any mortal woman brave enough to enter the Otherworld would understand the laws that govern this place,” Graves says. “Promise nothing. Accept nothing. Believe nothing. Trust nothing. Owe nothing. And if you follow these, you may come home alive.”

Queenie’s head is spinning. “You _tricked_ me! I thought you was being kind!”

“Kind and cruel,” he says. “We're like the wind. We blow both ways.”

“I don’t want your help,” Queenie says. 

“Want or not, I am obliged to give it,” Graves says. He looks away, something like regret on his face. “For the little my word’s worth to you…I am sorry I did not warn you.”

Queenie just stares at him, shivering, arms folded over her chest. What has she gotten herself into? She should have listened to Newt. “Did you…were you the light I followed?” she asks.

“ _No_ ,” Graves says, looking at her with wide eyes. “ _That_ was a will o’ wisp. It would have led you straight off a cliff, or into a marsh, or some worse peril. I could not let you be so led astray.”

“So—you was trying to help me.”

Graves doesn’t answer, just inclines his head in affirmation. 

She’s not sure it changes anything, but…he hadn’t been the one to tempt her into the woods, had he? He’d helped her. And even if she wasn’t supposed to trust him, he’d made her a promise. That counted for something, if those rules were true. _If_. It’s a very big ‘if’, but it’s all Queenie’s got. 

The leaves of the trees rustle in a sudden breeze and the ferns sway, rippling like an ocean. It’s all green, still seductive, now terrifying. If she looks at Graves’ eyes, she can see the same colors there. It evokes the same feelings as the forest.

“All right,” she says in a small voice, offering her hand. He takes it with the utmost gentleness and a smile. Queenie’s traitorous heart flutters. 

The endless forest never looks any different, but now Queenie is certain that Graves knows exactly where he’s going. For a while, they don’t talk, because every time Queenie tries to say something the words get stuck in her throat and every time it looks like Graves might speak he shakes his head like he’s chastising himself. It’s the most singularly awkward thing Queenie has ever experienced. If she didn’t know better, she’d think the man was embarrassed. 

“How _did_ you end up in the forest on the summer solstice, anyway?” Graves asks. The question is abrupt, but not sharp. He sounds genuinely curious.

“I was sick and tired of watching my sister and best friend giving each other heart eyes,” Queenie says baldly. “So I left.”

Graves laughs. “Heart eyes? That’s something I’ve not heard before. Evocative, though.”

“Well, you’d have heard it if you ever left this wood. How long has it been since you talked to anyone from the twenty-first century?” Queenie asks pertly, trying to look down her nose at him even though she’s barely level with his shoulder. 

“I never have,” Graves says. “Until you wandered in.”

Queenie thinks about that for a moment. She pushes aside a particularly large fern frond and hops over a dip in the forest floor. “Are you all alone here?”

“No, no,” Graves says with a shrug. “There are the wisps, which make fine company, if you don’t mind babble. Some of the smaller fresh-water merfolk, in the stream.”

“You have _mermaids_?”

“With the tails of minnows,” Graves says. He holds up thumb and forefinger, about two inches apart. “Tiny things, they are. And there’s dryads about, though they don’t like me much. Kobolds, in the fairy mound, hard at work on their mining. Pixies and sylphs, if you’d prefer to be above ground.”

It’s impossible not to notice a common theme. “So there’s no one else like you?”

Graves pauses. He pushes aside the branches of a nightshade bush so Queenie can pass. “No,” he says. “None like me, though for good reason. I am the lord of this place, though few now remember that.”

Queenie stares up at him. He’s staring off into the dimness between the trees, looking terribly distant and almost sad. “I’d believe it,” she says hesitantly. 

“You would?” Graves asks, a sardonic twist to his mouth. “You’ve no reason to say so.”

“You’re very…regal,” Queenie says. He is, with that proud bearing, the way he carries himself as if the world should bow to him. “Kingly.”

“Well, I thank you,” he says. His smile softens a little, becomes more genuine. “It’s rare to hear something kind spoken so freely.”

They continue on. The ferns shrink a little, and profusions of vines climb up to cover the bases of the trees. The bright afternoon sunlight streaming down the tiny gaps between the trees is more and more gold. Outside the forest, the sun must be setting.

Suddenly, Graves stops. He lets go of Queenie’s hand to throw out his arm, stopping her in her tracks. He points off between the trees, into the shadows. Queenie leans forward, trying to see what he sees—and then she recognizes it. A huge stag, the size of a horse or more, moves between the trees. Its antlers are tremendous, a branching profusions of points that look like trees themselves. Heavy moss and lichen drape over its antlers and back, dripping down its haunches and flanks. There are does with it, three or four, not quite as big and lacking antlers, but much more graceful.

Queenie holds her breath. But then she shifts just a little, and the leaves underfoot rustle. The stag snorts and it looks toward them, ears pricked. For a second, the whole scene is perfectly still. Menace looms from the huge stag, which could kill both of them with a single charge.

“On your way,” Graves says softly. “We mean you no harm.”

The stag eyes him for a moment longer, and then turns away, sinking back into the shadows, the does following. Queenie tries to breathe again and feels a little faint. “Are things like that everywhere?”

“Yes,” Graves says. “Beautiful, aren’t they?”

“Newt would love to see those,” Queenie says. She thinks of the stories he’s told—of adopting sheep as a child, of the mother cat who’d birthed her kittens in his bed—and smiles. “They’d like him.”

Graves cocks his head. “Newt? As in, a creature from a pond?”

“No, no, that’s his name,” Queenie says, and then amends: “Nickname. He’s really Newton.”

“Ah,” Graves says. He offers his arm and, feeling bizarrely comfortable, Queenie takes it, hand curled around the crook of his elbow. It’s more comfortable than holding hands, and strangely much more intimate. “Tell me more about him.”

Queenie wonders what to say. “He lives not too far from here,” she says. “He has red hair and a lot of chickens, and three dogs, and two cats, and a cockatiel, and he feeds all the animals that come into his garden, even the snakes.”

“Does he have any space left for you?” Graves inquires. 

“Not really!” Queenie says with a laugh. “Tina and I’ve got to squeeze in wherever we’ll fit—Newt tried to put Tina under the stairs in the broom closet once and she almost hit him.”

“A broom closet!”

Her hair bounces as she nods wildly. “It was so awkward! He said something about it being like Howl’s Moving Castle, but I think it’s more like Harry Potter…”

Graves waves a hand. “You’ve lost me. Who’s this Howl and his castle? And ‘Harry Potter’? What sort of a name is that? And your Tina—”

“Tina’s my sister,” Queenie says, starting with the easiest explanation.

At that, Graves snaps his fingers. “Ah, the one making ‘heart eyes’! Then she and Newt—”

“Right on,” Queenie says. Graves helps her over a fallen tree, nearly invisible under a tangled heap of vines. “They’re the worst. They could be talking about _cows_ and it would still sound lovesick!”

“Sounds like something out of a bad poem,” Graves says. 

Queenie scoffs theatrically. “You don’t know the half of it, honey. Half the time it’s like they forget I’m even there!”

“How unmannerly.”

“It’s fine,” Queenie says. She shrugs. It’s self-deprecating and she knows it, but—“I’m used to it.”

Under her hand, she feels the tendon in his elbow flex as his fist clenches in apparent irritation. “I retain my earlier statement. You do not deserve to be ignored.”

“Plenty of people pay attention to me,” Queenie says. She thinks of the Tinder dates gone wrong when it turned out the guy just wanted sex, of the number of OkCupid messages and dick pics she’d gotten before deleting the app out of sheer frustration, of her stupid lab tech Abernathy who thought she didn’t know what he was saying about her behind her back. Attention. Right.

Graves doesn’t respond. He only looks down at her once, a little solemn, and pulls her slightly nearer. Queenie suspects he’d understood the unspoken part of what she’d said. She appreciates that he didn’t try to say anything or ‘make it better’. That’s what Tina does, but what does Tina know? She’s never had a single dating app. Queenie envies her sister her dark hair and snub nose. Of course Tina is beautiful, but Marilyn was right about one thing: gentlemen prefer blondes. 

Ahead, a simply _massive_ tree stands alone in the middle of a clearing. The sunlight washes everything in gold, turns leaves to shadows, leaves stripes through the tall grass. Crickets chirp melodies, leaping out of the way of their feet as Queenie and Graves cross the open field to the tree. 

“Is that a door?” Queenie asks, eyes wide. 

“The door to what once was the fairy fort,” Graves says. The archway before them sinks into the bark of the tree, revealing a staircase that spirals steeply down into the darkness. “We must pass through in order to bring you back.”

Queenie hesitates, using the frame of the door to brace herself as she looks down the stairs. Not one speck of light is visible down there. “It’s…dark.”

Graves flicks his wrist and makes a sort of tossing motion, and stars of blue-white light spring into existence all around them. “Here,” he says. “Will these suit?”

“Oh,” Queenie says. She looks around at the stars. “Magic…”

“It’s what I am,” he says, and steps across the threshold. 

The stairs are long. Queenie counts to sixteen and then sixteen and then sixteen again as they descend. Graves has to let go of her, because they can’t go side by side; Queenie keeps her hand on the wall, feeling the silk-smooth ripples of wood under her palm. Anything they say echoes down and down into the darkness. The stars dance around them, sending shadows sparkling across the walls. 

“How deep will we go?” Queenie asks.

“Past the roots of the forest,” Graves answers, looking over his shoulder. “There is no sunlight down here, and many things that live in the dark are unpleasant. But the kobolds are no trouble, and few other things dare to come this way.”

At the bottom step, Graves turns and helps Queenie down. There is a tunnel curving away from them now, and it takes Queenie a moment to realize what she’s looking at. Veins of gold and silver lace the walls, studded with gems the size of her head in all colors of the rainbow. It’s a treasure hoard that would make a king drool with envy. She stares at it with wide eyes, and only realizes when Graves turns back to her that she’s stopped walking. 

“Sorry,” she says, hurrying to catch up. 

“You stare as if you’d never seen such a place before,” Graves says. 

Queenie shakes her head. “I haven’t,” she says. She reaches out and brushes her hand over the rough, uncut surface of a ruby that glints strangely in the light of the magic stars. 

“Oh,” Graves says. His expression is strange, pleased but confused. “You—like it?”

“It’s amazing,” Queenie says. Without even thinking about it, she grabs his hand and starts walking again, dragging her free hand over the wall so she can feel everything. 

Even though she’s practically towing him, Graves keeps pace easily with his long legs. Their footsteps echo on the stone. “I suppose it is impressive,” he says. When Queenie looks up at him, he’s watching her in apparent puzzlement.

“What I don’t understand is why we’re going underground,” she says. She waves her hand, indicating the whole tunnel. “I didn’t get here this way!”

“Space and time are a little different—ah, watch out.” Graves catches Queenie before she can trip over a jag in the floor. “A day here is but an instant in the mortal world, but a year here is a century there.”

Queenie squints at him. Is he joking? “And how does that work?”

Graves shrugs carelessly. “I never cared to understand it. Old Father Time will tell you, if you can find him, but he has not passed this way in many a long year.”

Voice a squeak, she asks, “Old…Father…Time?” Every time, _every time_ that she thinks she’s heard the craziest thing, Graves comes up with something new. 

“Oh, yes,” Graves says, quite solemnly. “A greybeard in a long dark cloak, hourglasses hanging at his belt, and a Book of Hours in his hand. A figure so feared that all the Fair Folk flee before him!”

“What does he do?” Queenie asks, a little overawed.

Graves shrugs. “He solves all riddles, knows the past and future of all, and comes from nothing to go into nothing. Old Father Time is not to be trifled with.”

“Why hasn’t he—” Queenie pauses. The corners of Graves’ mouth are twitching, as if he’s fighting a smile. “Are you teasing me?”

The smile breaks loose and it feels like the sun just came out. “Only a little,” he says. 

Queenie playfully slaps his shoulder. “You _jerk_!”

Graves clutches at the spot and staggers a little, the smile never fading. “I am _wounded_ , my lady!”

“I won’t know what’s real and what ain’t if you keep that up!”

“You are real,” Graves says, and he squeezes her hand tightly. “I do not think that even I could dream up someone like you.”

That’s…sweet, actually. He doesn’t sound like he’s trying to flatter her. It’s a sincere compliment, with no expectation of anything, which Queenie hasn’t had in…forever. “Um. Thank you,” Queenie says, feeling stupidly shy. 

Again, Graves doesn’t reply, just nods. He doesn’t let go of her hand. Queenie doesn’t even think about pulling away. 

The tunnel branches off in many places, but Graves never takes a single one. Sometimes, there’s crackling firelight far down, or the sounds of hammers and picks, or the sound of eerie singing. But no matter how much Queenie wants to explore, Graves won’t let her. He just repeats that it’s dangerous, and he’s promised to keep her safe. “And if that means keeping you safe from yourself and your own ridiculous curiosity, I will _carry_ you back home,” he says. 

“You come here all the time and you ain’t been killed yet,” Queenie points out.

“I _live_ here, my lady,” Graves says patiently. “This is my demesne. Creatures of this place will do me no harm. They would show no such courtesy to you, and as I am your protector, I cannot in good conscience let you encounter them.”

She huffs with indignation, but rests her head briefly on his shoulder anyway. She’s really starting to like him, despite all the better judgement that tells her not to. He’s been nothing but kind. The terms of his promise said only he had to get her home safely: not that he had to listen to her, go out of his way to show her marvels of the Otherworld, look at her like she’s something incredible. 

Maybe she’s being stupid, but Queenie’s not sure she cares. 

The tunnel emerges abruptly into a much larger cavern, fanged with dripping stalactites and stalagmites. It echoes with running water, dripping water, and the distant whispers of…something.

“We’re not alone, I think,” Graves murmurs. “Stay close.”

“Not a problem, honey,” Queenie replies. She’s so near him that he could trip over her if he wasn’t careful. It feels about as safe as she’s going to get.

Crossing the cavern is fraught with tension. Queenie’s nerves jangle with every drip and every scrape over stone. By the time they’re halfway across, the whispers have been joined by giggles that would be merry if they weren’t coming out of the pitch-black cavern. Graves looks more and more tense and seeing him afraid is making Queenie afraid, too. 

Ahead of them, an oily voice says, “What have you brought this way, dear Percival?”

“This is none of your concern,” Graves says tightly. His arm slips around Queenie’s shoulders. She presses close because that voice sounds like ice dripping down her back. “You have no power here, Grindelwald. Go.”

“You brought a mortal here,” a pale man says, fading in from the shadows. His eyes are disturbing, and though he’s dressed well Queenie can feel the violence radiating from him. “An interesting toy. When you’re finished with it…”

Graves doesn’t move a muscle. “Out of my way. Go from this place.”

The pale man smiles like a razor. “Your power wanes. I need not obey your command.”

There are things slipping through the shadows. Queenie glances to the side and can’t stifle a cry of fear. The creatures are goggle-eyed, with crystal shards of broken glass for fingernails, and fingernails for teeth inside their terrible wide mouths. Their flesh, stretched over bones, looks spongy like a mushroom cap. They’ve got empty sockets for noses and wild manes of matted white hair. And they scuttle like centipedes, gurgling laughs that sound as sweet as a baby’s as they reach out toward her.

“Do you like the goblins, pretty mortal?” the pale man asks pleasantly. 

“Don’t answer him,” Graves snaps in warning. Queenie can feel something like the electricity in the air before a storm, drawing close around them. A breeze stirs in the calm air of the cavern, ruffling her skirt and hair. “Grindelwald, _go_. Get out.”

The pale man doesn’t move. “Will you live, when the goblins have chewed on your bones, when I have taken your magic and eaten it for myself?”

 _Eaten_ it?

“A third time, I charge you,” Graves says, and thunder rolls behind his words. “Go.”

A goblin howls and leaps for Queenie. 

She screams, but Graves has already moved. He lashes out with a hand and the earth buckles with an ear-splitting explosion. The goblin is knocked aside by a flying chunk of stone, but there are already three more in its place. Queenie staggers backward, arms raised to protect herself. Graves is _fast_ , impossibly fast, skin crackling with lightning as he lights goblins aflame with a snap of his wrist. It’s like watching a summer storm roll in, power shuddering through the air, thunder shaking the earth.

The pale man, Grindelwald, only watches. He’s no more than a sleek shadow, wreathed in the smell of crude oil and ashy shadows. Queenie tries to avoid his eyes as she avoids the goblins, keeping her back to a huge stalagmite. She doesn’t want those things anywhere near her. 

Graves is tearing the cavern apart on his way to Grindelwald. Stones shatter in his path and the ceiling shakes like it’s going to collapse. The shadows crash and break around him like waves, unable to touch him at the nexus of a literal storm. Queenie is terrified and transfixed at the same time. And it’s really that which ends up hurting her.

One of the goblins must have slipped around, out of Graves’ notice, because suddenly it seizes her arm with a gibbering howl. Queenie screams as the broken-glass claws sink into her upper arm. She slams her elbow into its grotesque face and rips herself away, stumbling back over the broken floor. It follows and she kicks it, regretting wearing sandals, but it’s enough to drive the creature back. She feels victorious—  
—until she trips and falls backwards. 

For a second, her arms windmill in the air. 

Then Graves catches her. 

One arm locks tight around her upper back while he hurls a blazing bolt of lightning with the other, sending the last of the goblins scattering. Queenie clutches at Graves for support. Her cut arm leaves smears of bright red blood across his white shirt. 

Grindelwald laughs. “Living up to your namesake, I see,” he purrs. 

“You’ve lost,” Graves bites out. 

The pale man holds up his hands in surrender, still smiling. “I shall see you again soon enough.”

He fades into the shadows again, the last of the goblins scrambling after him. Graves watches them go, looking murderous, but the second they’re out of sight he turns to Queenie in concern. “You were bitten?”

“It clawed me,” Queenie says, pain starting to seep into her. She swallows hard, looking at the cuts on her arm, oozing blood. 

“Shit,” Graves says under his breath. And then the next thing Queenie knows, he’s picked her up, arm behind her back and arm under her knees, as if she weighs the same as a feather. 

Queenie can’t hold back a panicky, delirious giggle. “I didn’t know you could swear.”

“When the situation warrants.”

“It sounds so modern!” Maybe she’s crying. Her arm hurts terribly.

He’s already in motion, carrying her across the rest of the cavern and into another tunnel. There’s no light—the stars have gone out, and Queenie can’t see a thing. “People have been using that word for eight hundred years or more,” Graves says, remarkably calm. “I assure you, I’ve been using it since I came into being.”

Queenie doesn’t know what to say to that. She rests her head on his shoulder and closes her eyes, since it makes no difference in the pitch blackness. And things are already so surreal that she doesn’t even notice when she slips all the way into a real dream.

The next thing she knows consciously is being awake where there’s light. She blinks for a second, trying to work out what’s happening. There’s something soft underneath her, and silver light flooding over everything. Her arm doesn’t hurt anymore.

Slowly, Queenie sits up. She looks down at her arm—it’s been bandaged, and truly doesn’t hurt at all. Her sandals are sitting next to her now, and her toes are slightly cold. There’s a bank of impossibly soft, thick moss under her, and even though she’s under an overhang of rock the open forest is visible beyond, moonlight streaming in. And Graves is sitting near the entrance, watching her with deep concern.

“Welcome back to the land of the living,” he says. 

“What happened?” Queenie asks, touching her arm.

“A goblin clawed you?”

Queenie shakes her head. “No, how did I end up here?”

“I brought you,” Graves says. “You needed healing, so I…provided.” 

Does he look _worried_? 

“I think I’m all right,” Queenie says. “It feels okay.”

Graves rises to his feet. It’s almost impossible to imagine him as he’d been fighting the goblins, a storm in the shape of a man, when he’s looking at her like this. “I am in debt to you,” he says.

Queenie stares up at him. “What do you mean?”

“I allowed you to come to harm.”

“That ain’t—you don’t owe me anything.”

He crosses the floor to kneel in front of her. They’re on eye level now, and close enough that Queenie could kiss him if she wanted. Does she want to? 

“I broke my word to you,” Graves says. His face is pale, and he doesn’t look human in the strange light. “I must fulfill my promise, and more than that you may ask of me whatever you please.”

“I don’t _want_ anything,” Queenie says. 

Graves stares at her. “What do you mean?” 

Queenie pulls her knees to her chest. “I mean I just—I don’t—I don’t want anything,” she says. “I don’t know what I’d ask you for. I didn’t even know you were _real_ this morning and if someone had asked me what a fairy was like I wouldn’t have said anything that got _close_.”

“We hide from you,” Graves says. Why does he sound so damn—so damn _gentle_? “You could never have known.”

“I wish I had!” Queenie says. “And I should be wishing that I’d listened to Newt, but I’m not.”

“Then what do you wish?” 

Queenie shakes her head and presses her forehead against her knees. “I don’t know…”

When he speaks, he sounds strung out, nervous, maybe even in pain. “Ask me for _something_ , Queenie. It hurts to break a bargain and owe a debt.”

She doesn’t think she means what she says, at first. “Please just give me a hug,” she whispers.

For a second she thinks he won’t. And then he does. He’s strong and he’s warm and he’s _safe_ and it’s right at that moment that Queenie realizes that she might actually be in a fairy tale. Because where else would she even be able to believe in love at first sight?

After a while, an interval in which Queenie absolutely didn’t cry on his shoulder, she pulls back and wipes her eyes. “Thank you, Graves,” she whispers.

“That…is not my name. What I told you was…well, it’s a bad joke. My name is different.”

Somehow she’s unsurprised. “Then what is it?”

“Percival,” he says. “A knight’s name. That’s what Grindelwald meant, when he said I was living up to my namesake. Acting like a knight in shining armor.”

“Percival…I like that.” 

“I do, too,” Percival says. 

Queenie sighs and looks up at him. “We should go,” she says. She hooks two fingers through the straps of her sandals, to carry them better. She’s not going to put them back on.

“…very well,” he says. He rises and offers her a hand. Queenie takes it and he pulls her effortlessly to her feet. It might have been an accident, when she rested her head for a moment against his chest. But Queenie knows it wasn’t.

They’re back in the forest, but it’s no longer the deep and terrible place they’d been before. Now it’s slender trees of a friendly height, smooth-barked with leaves that shimmer in the moonlight. Night birds sing in the trees. If Queenie had thought of an enchanted forest before, this is what she would have imagined. She thinks she sees faces in the trees, once, but Percival tells her to ignore them.

“The dryads don’t know what’s good for them,” he says loudly, and there’s a chorus of tinkling laughter. Percival looks around in irritation. “Gossips, all of them.”

“They sound lovely,” Queenie puts in. 

Percival makes a face, rolling his eyes. “Fair of face, vile of heart,” he says. 

“You’re biased,” Queenie says. “If they’re like you—they’re like the wind. They blow both ways.”

Funny: he doesn’t really seem to be as mercurial as he claims. Is it because of his promise, or because of something else? What is Percival, really?

“They’re not like me,” Percival says. “The closest creature to what I am is Grindelwald.”

Queenie shudders. “Him?”

Percival smiles faintly. “We’re cut from the same cloth,” Percival says. “Two halves of a whole.”

“What do you mean?”

“Summer and winter, earth and sky: it’s all part and parcel of the same,” Percival says. “ _He_ is all that I am not. I did not lie, when I said there was no one like me in this place. We are nothing alike, except that we are twins. A fine distinction.”

“So when you’re kind…”

“He is very much the opposite,” Percival says. The smell of ozone is on the air and Queenie shivers. “We all come in pairs. Some hold it in one body—The Mab is a particular offender, delivering fancies and blisters in the same night—and some of us have the burden borne by two.”

At that, Queenie stops in her tracks. “You _aren’t_ changeable after all!”

“I never said that I was not changeable,” Percival warns. “A summer storm drives as much destruction as an earthquake, and it comes and goes in a heartbeat.”

Queenie looks at him, leaning against the tree. “You haven’t been so bad.”

Percival half-smiles. He bends and plucks a flower, holding it out to her. “Monkshood,” he says.

She takes it. “Thank you?”

“It’s a warning to beware of danger,” Percival says. He picks another flower, a small bundle of pink flowers from a sprawling plant. “Rose Daphne: I desire only to please you.”

Queenie thinks she might be the same color as the flower but takes it anyway. “Are you trying to tell me something?” she asks. 

Percival only smiles, and paces to another tree, where small stems of white bell-shaped flowers grow. He picks one, and fern fronds, and holds these out as well. “Lily of the valley and ferns,” he says.

“What do these mean?” Queenie asks, adding the flowers to her steadily-growing bouquet. 

“Your unconscious sweetness has fascinated me,” Percival says. 

In the silence, Queenie can practically hear her heart beating. She knows what she wants him to do but she’s _paralyzed_. “I think I should have given these to you, instead,” she says at last, dizzy. 

Percival shakes his head. “Do not be insincere.”

“I’m sincere!” Queenie says. “I’ve never met someone like you before. You’re wonderful.”

“…thank you,” Percival says. There’s a strange look of dawning realization, and then before Queenie can think he’s kissed her. 

It passes in half a second, at most, a brief touch that makes Queenie’s lips tingle. His hand is on her jaw, holding her in place, and he doesn’t remove it when he breaks the kiss. She stares at him, eyes wide, as he steps back. She only notices absently that she’s dropped her sandals. 

“…what was that?” Queenie asks, staring up at him. 

“A kiss,” he says. 

The crickets chirp for a moment. 

Of course it was a kiss.

“I feel like I owe you something,” Queenie says. 

“You owe me nothing,” Graves says. “Your gift was given freely, so that kiss was…merely a boon.”

“Wait,” Queenie says. “What do you mean, I don’t owe you anything? You kissed me!”

“You paid me compliments, first, out of simple goodness. You see, mortals play by different rules,” Percival says softly. His hand lingers, fingertips brushing the side of her neck. “The fae cannot give without taking. There are laws which regulate our conduct. But the charity of a mortal, a gift freely given…that circumvents the law.”  
Queenie’s eyes widen as she realizes what that means. “What I said, about you being wonderful—you weren’t paying me back for that?”

“No,” Percival says. 

“Then you _wanted_ —?”

Percival closes his eyes as if bracing for a blow. “Yes.”

Oh. 

_Oh_.

“If you _wanted_ ,” Queenie says slowly, “you could kiss me again.”

There’s a moment when time seems to stop. Percival opens his eyes and looks at her. Very slowly, cupping her face in his hands, he leans in and kisses her. Queenie tries not to melt. She clutches at the tree behind her, trying to find purchase on the smooth bark. 

“What if there are other things I want to do?” Percival asks, looking down at Queenie with absolutely naked _desire_ in his eyes. “If there are things I may do freely because you are a good and charitable person?”

“You should do them,” Queenie says. 

Her eyes slide shut when Percival kisses her again. It’s as electric as the first time. And then his hands are on her sides, pulling her tucked-in shirt free and sliding warm against her skin. Queenie shivers and twists a little, reaching to pull open the lacing at the collar of his shirt. 

“Arms,” Percival says against the corner of Queenie’s mouth. 

She’s hardly lifted her arms before Percival has pulled off her shirt and dropped it beside them. He stops, staring, and Queenie cocks her head at him in confusion. “What are you looking at?” 

“I had expected…undergarments?” His eyes flick over her bare chest and up to her face and back again as if he doesn’t quite know where to look. “Is this some twenty-first century thing?”

“No, it’s very Sixties,” Queenie says. She folds her arms under her breasts, maybe a little self-conscious. “I just don’t like bras much.”

A smile sneaks its way onto Percival’s face. “I don’t, either,” he says with a wink. He takes her hands, pulling her arms away from her chest, lacing their fingers together. And then he kisses her, deeper than before, wet and a little sloppy, and Queenie thinks she might actually be melting. 

Percival lets go of her hand. For a second she’s bereft of the contact, almost disappointed, and then there is just the lightest pinch on the side of her breast. Her eyes snap open and she squeaks with surprise, though not pain—it feels _good_. It ain’t like anyone had ever done that before, so she wouldn’t know. And she doesn’t have time to think about it. He’s kissing a line down her neck, sucking at her collarbone, and…

… _oh_. 

Queenie’s had people touch her, fondle her, and so on, but it was always a little impersonal, a distraction from the main event. And this—this is sex right here on its own. She didn’t know it could feel this good, being licked and kissed and bitten, but it _does_. Her thrown-back head is pressed so hard against the tree that it almost hurts, the few ridges in the bark grating along her shoulder blades, and she doesn’t care. Percival’s mouth and hands are working _magic_.

It feels like there ain’t an inch of skin he hasn’t touched. Everything is perfect, ridiculously, stupidly perfect. Queenie laughs, once, when his fingers ghost over her ribs; he does it again, looking up at her with a delighted grin, and she feels warm all over. She’s never had somebody look at her like that.

“Having fun?” Percival asks, question punctuated by a kiss just above the waist of Queenie’s skirt.

“A lot,” Queenie says, breathless. She runs her hands through his hair, disarranging it. Her fingers catch on something—a braid, she realizes, something she hadn’t really seen in his dark hair before. 

Percival’s thumbs trace slow circles over her hips and her knees tremble. “Shall I go on?”

“Please,” Queenie says. 

She is _really_ glad she went for elasticated waist on this skirt because he just takes hold and pulls and her skirt is off. For a second, Queenie’s ankles get tangled because Percival is not precisely careful, but she manages not to trip and fall. And because he’s not being careful she pulls off her panties herself and, well, it’s not a striptease exactly, but the expression on his face makes her feel like it was. 

He’s all the way down on his knees, now, and her nerves are singing with anticipation. Percival flattens one hand on Queenie’s stomach and runs it down until his fingers comb through the dark hair between her legs. He holds her hip with the other hand, keeping her in place. Queenie has an inkling, distantly, that maybe she should hold onto something, but the tree is just going to have to do. 

The first press of his mouth is strangely unremarkable. And then his tongue—it’s not just _words_ he can make spin, it’s her _head_. He starts slow, licking lightly at her, sometimes sliding to either side, teasing her until she’s fairly sure she’s going to pass out. No one has _ever_ made her feel this good. She’s not quite moaning, not yet, but she’s going to be soon if he doesn’t—

And right about then her legs completely give out under her. 

Next thing she knows she’s flat on her back, with Percival’s hand under her head. “— _Queenie_!”

“I’m all right,” she says, blinking spots out of her eyes. “I think I just—I think I just locked my knees a little bit. It happened to me when I was little, in choir. I’m all right.” She’s babbling, but he looks absolutely panicked. 

“Are you sure?” Percival asks.

Queenie takes a deep breath. “Yes,” she says. “I mean. I’m not hurt, right?”

“I caught you,” Percival says simply. What an answer—of course she ain’t hurt. 

“Then what are you waiting for?” Queenie asks.

Percival laughs. “You’re a marvel.” He kisses her again. She can taste _herself_ and it’s incredibly strange and wonderful, something she’s never really experienced before, because nobody ever kissed her like this after going down on her. 

Almost as if he hadn’t been interrupted, Percival picks up right where he left off. As nice as it was before this is better. When she looks down and sees him between her legs, lavishing attention on her like she’s the perfect one, Queenie thinks for a second she might cry. And then his lips wrap around her and an electric shock goes right through her. Her entire lower body throbs and she’s seeing _stars_.

When she’s stopped shaking, Percival sits up, cross-legged. He licks his lips and wipes off his face—his _face_ , the thought of that is enough to get Queenie halfway there again—and grins at her. “My absolute favorite thing,” he says. 

Queenie sits up, too, tucking her hair behind her ears, straightening out the tangles as best she can. “I couldn’t tell,” she says. 

“If you’d the energy, I’d do that morning, noon, and evening,” Percival says. 

“I don’t think I’d be able to pull that off,” Queenie says, a little dizzy with the thought of being at the center of that for so long. She’s still wet, and still _wanting_.

“Ah, and you won’t be here much longer, anyway,” Percival says. He looks away, some of the sheer happiness fading from his expression. 

“I’d like to be here a long time,” Queenie says. 

Percival shakes his head. “I must return you eventually,” he says. 

Queenie watches him. His hair is a disaster, from her hands running through it, and his clothes are disheveled and disarranged, but somehow he still looks completely composed. She wants to see him fall apart. And if there’s one thing Queenie knows she can do, it’s make that happen. “You don’t have to take me back for a while,” she says. He looks at her and she tilts her head, challenging. “I might not be able to go all day, but I’ve got one more in me.”

“If you want,” Percival says, low, and the smile comes back. Less sweet, and more hungry. He offers a hand and she takes it. She pulls off his shirt and he divests himself of pants—because it’s not a good idea for her to try that, he almost tripped her with a skirt so who knows what would happen with more hems—and then Queenie has to stop because there’s a lot of thoughts going through her head. Lust, yes, but also reminders of things like ‘safety’ and ‘protection’ and so on. It’s as if he can read her mind: “You have nothing to worry about. I’m nothing like you in anything but looks. We are made of different stuff.”

“That’s good,” Queenie says. She trusts him, and as he backs her up against the tree again all of her doubts vanish. Though—“Didn’t this not work last time?”

Percival runs one hand through her hair, catching in the tangled curls and tugging gently. “Your feet, my lady, will never touch the ground,” he says. Queenie’s eyes fly wide open. Does he mean what she thinks he does? And then he says, “Hold on.”

Reflexively, as he sweeps her right off her feet, Queenie wraps her legs around his waist, hanging on for dear life. “Don’t you _dare_ drop me!” she says, laughing, clutching his shoulders.

“I would not do so for the world,” Percival says, strangely solemn.

There’s a moment, held this close to him, that Queenie feels something that ain’t exactly lust. It’s something she doesn’t want to name, or maybe already did. Love at first sight is a fairy tale. 

Ain’t that what this is?

“What are you waiting for?” she asks softly, after a moment. 

There’s awkward fumbling, because of course there is. This is hard to manage, even if he’s impossibly strong and she’s fairly flexible. But when they get it, she’s still so wet from their first round that Percival slides right into her. Queenie moans into his shoulder, shuddering with pleasure, and he echoes the sound, much deeper. 

It feels _right_. Percival fits her like he was made for her. When he moves, thrusting into her with a rhythm that sets her heart pounding nearly in synchronization, it’s _everything_ Queenie has ever fantasized about. Her back scrapes against the tree, a little, but his arms are protecting her from most of it. They hardly break contact to breathe. Queenie doesn’t want to stop kissing him, doesn’t want this to ever end. Her nails are digging into his back and whenever they sink in deeper he _growls_ , kissing her harder. 

She’s overwhelmed, being held and kissed and _fucked _, overstimulated and truly enchanted. She doesn’t even realize what’s happening until the world tilts upside down and she’s coming like she never has in her life. A cry tears out of her and she buries her face in the crook of his neck, shaking almost to pieces. Percival follows seconds later, very nearly crushing her against his chest. He doesn’t make a sound except a sharp intake of breath.__

__Percival sinks to the ground, still holding her, and Queenie just lets him because she feels like she couldn’t move if she tried. She doesn’t want to, anyway. She can’t remember the last time someone wanted to laugh with her, and hold her hand, and go on adventures with her. She really can’t even remember the last time she felt like somebody actually noticed that she was there at all._ _

__But she’s here now, with somebody who _does_ notice, who might actually care about Queenie like she wants to be cared about. And she never, ever wants to leave. _ _

__The feeling lasts all the way through until the moment that they’re standing where Percival assures her is the way back. They haven’t spoken much, since leaving that moonlight-scattered clearing, just held hands. Queenie is still barefoot, unable to make herself put on her sandals, and there’s a lilac flower tucked behind her ear. For memory, he’d told her, and Queenie had only said that she didn’t need a reminder of any of this._ _

__“If you walk straight forward,” Percival says, “you will find yourself on your road.”_ _

__“I don’t see it,” Queenie says, looking into the cool night shadows of the trees._ _

__“That’s how magic works.” Percival looks down at her, rueful. “Far too often, it is impossible to see what we desire the most even when it is before us.”_ _

__Queenie swallows hard. “I understand that,” she says._ _

__Percival meets her eyes. “Our bargain is concluded,” he says. He lets go of her hand and steps back. “Go home, my lady.”_ _

__“I don’t want to,” Queenie says._ _

__“You cannot stay here,” Percival says. “This is not a place for mortals.”_ _

__Slowly, Queenie takes one step backward, and then another, toward the road. “I wish I didn’t have to,” she says, blinking back tears._ _

__“For the little my word’s worth to you…I will miss you,” Percival says._ _

__“It means a lot,” Queenie says. “I trust you.”_ _

__Percival rocks back on his heels. “That’s not wise,” he says, “but…I am grateful for that. I am grateful for your company, this Solstice night, Queenie. You’ve brought more magic into this place than there has been for many a year.”_ _

__Queenie wants to run back to him, but it’s Percival who turns away first. He disappears into the trees so suddenly and swiftly that Queenie knows immediately that he’s not coming back. She waits for a moment, anyway, but nothing happens. It’s just a forest, dark and frightening without him._ _

__So she turns and walks in the direction he told her and—_ _

__—she’s standing blinking in the brilliant, golden late-June sunlight, on the verge of the road, looking into the forest. Her sandals dangle from her fingers by their straps, and there is a lilac tucked behind her ear._ _

__The roar of an engine startles her and Queenie spins in time to see a car hurtle past. It’s so violently modern that she doesn’t have to wonder if this is real. It is. She’s home, as surely as if she’d never left at all._ _

__She doesn’t bother putting on her shoes as she walks back to Newt’s house, even though the pavement is hot and tries to burn her feet. Queenie is so preoccupied that she doesn’t care._ _

__When she comes into the kitchen, Newt is washing dishes and Tina is sitting at the counter, kicking bare heels against the cabinets. Tina looks up quizzically. “Hey,” she says. “Too hot out there?”_ _

__“What do you mean?” Queenie asks numbly._ _

__“You were only gone for about fifteen minutes!” Tina says._ _

__Newt looks over his shoulder at her. “Did something happen?” he asks, in a strange voice._ _

__Queenie thinks of a smile and magic and wonders in a fairy-tale world, and shakes her head. “No,” she says. “It was just hot, so I came home.”_ _

__“Pretty flowers,” Tina says, gesturing to the lilacs._ _

__Carefully, Queenie disentangles them from her curls. “Thanks,” she says._ _

__Newt dries off his hands, fills a glass with water, and hands it to her. “Funny,” he says, studying her keenly, “I didn’t think those grew anywhere near the road.”_ _

__“I told you,” Queenie says softly, putting the flowers into the water, “it’s just superstition.”_ _

__She goes upstairs, after that, to the room she gets to occupy alone since Tina’s sleeping in the attic room now. Newt’s brother had knocked down the bricks shutting it up last time that he was home, and with some elbow grease it was fit to live in. Queenie fleetingly wonders about the possible things that might live there—about stories of fairies that live in houses, the shoemaker and his elves—and shuts it down. It had to have been a dream._ _

__Still, she’s out of sorts. She sets the flowers on the windowsill, in the sunlight, and curls up on the bed to stare at them. Had she really dreamed something so real, so vivid?_ _

__“Hey,” Tina says, poking her head in the door, “Newt and I are going to the Tesco in town, you want anything?”_ _

__What she wants is _not_ going to be found at a Tesco. “No.”_ _

__“All right,” Tina says. She tosses Queenie’s phone across the room; it hits the bed, bounces, and stops. “Just keep this close, all right?”_ _

__Queenie summons up the energy to roll her eyes at her sister. “Worrywart.”_ _

__Tina laughs. “Turn on your damn ringer!” And she closes the door on her way out._ _

__Downstairs, Queenie hears indistinct conversation, and then the door shutting. The car engine revs, the dogs bark a lot, and then it’s all quiet. The house sounds empty._ _

__The lilacs stand in the window and Queenie stares at them for she doesn’t know how long. They have to be real, they cast a shadow and everything. What about everything else?_ _

__The buzzing of her phone is so loud in the silence that Queenie jumps. She snatches it up and stares at the text from Tina. _ok if we have one of newt’s friends over? ran into the dude at tesco, he seems pretty cool. your type tbh, super smart and really funny__ _

___Yes_ , Queenie texts back._ _

___cool, I’ll let newt know_ _ _

__She drops back down and goes on staring at the flowers. It seems like minutes before there’s the sound of engines outside, though the slide of the shadows says it’s been hours. Queenie listens to the commotion downstairs: the door banging open, the dogs barking, laughter, the crash and bang of groceries being put away, and conversation. It’s Newt and Tina and an indistinct male voice which must be Newt’s friend._ _

__“Queenie!” Tina hollers up the steps. “Come on down, we’ve got company!”_ _

__Ever so slowly, Queenie hauls herself out of bed. She checks herself once in the mirror, for the sake of things, and then goes downstairs just as she is, barefoot and a little crumpled. They’re all in the kitchen—it sounds like Tina’s kicking the cabinet doors absentmindedly again, and there’s the rattle of things being stacked in the refrigerator. And a lilting Irish voice, which shouldn’t sound so familiar._ _

__She rounds the corner and stops in her tracks. The man leaning against the wall, barefoot in jeans and a t-shirt, is exactly the person she did not expect to see. He looks at her and a smile lights up his face. Queenie’s heart leaps. “Hello,” he says._ _

__“Hello, Mr. Graves,” Queenie says._ _

__Tina looks confounded and Newt looks astonished, but the man’s smile only grows. “Call me Percival,” he says._ _

__Maybe ‘happily ever after’ is the right ending for a fairy tale after all._ _

**Author's Note:**

> LOTS OF NOTES. I dropped a lot of references, okay? Credit where credit is due, I stand upon the shoulders of giants in all my work.
> 
> I borrowed my favorite quote from Conrad’s _Heart of Darkness_. (The only good part of that book, I swear.) “Watching a coast as it slips by the ship is like thinking about an enigma. There it is before you, smiling, frowning, inviting, grand, mean, insipid, or savage, and always mute with an air of whispering, ‘Come and find out’.”
> 
> Regarding the name. Percival picked it because, amusingly enough, author Robert Graves was a student of Irish mythology. What’s even more amusing? His father was Alfred **Perceval** Graves. I am not remotely kidding. I lost my SHIT when I read that, as in “practically had a nuclear meltdown because SERENDIPITY IS MY FRIEND AT LAST INSTEAD OF SCREWING ME OVER AGAIN”. Screaming into the carpet. Literally. It’s like payback for all the modern slang I never get to use. So. Yeah. Percival is just a giant dork even when he’s a fucking elf.
> 
> “Within the within of the forest” comes from _The House Above the Trees_ , a story about a girl who gets lost in a magical forest. It’s a children’s book so there’s absolutely NO adult content, but it suits well.
> 
> The Goblin King: shut up, I love Labyrinth. (Also, more girls getting lost in magical lands. A theme has begun to emerge here.)
> 
> “We’re like the wind. We blow both ways.”—Mad Sweeney, _American Gods_ 1.07 “A Prayer For Mad Sweeney”
> 
> I legitimately went out of my way to ensure that Percival could swear. Here’s an article on the origin of the word “shit”. The lengths I go to, you guys.
> 
> And one more thing. In that article (and in similar ones, I linked to a pretty short one that summed up the rest of the research), they ballpark the date to the 14th century. As one of the Fair Folk, Percival has been around a lot longer. I legitimately thought about what his attitude toward sex would be (super lenient, because he’s pre-Christian and also, y’know, NOT HUMAN) and then ran headlong into the “merlin’s beard there are no damn resources for any of this because I’m seeking esoteric information from, like, the 5th century”. There’s just…nothing. Because no one was writing the relevant things down in the location and period in which I’m looking. So…yeah. I actually just got to wing it and do what I wanted. Kinda cool, no? (Though, I do say this in the interest of accuracy in my research notes: the sex here is firmly in the camp of “this is a fantasy and we do what and whom we want”. Good luck imitating anything these two get up to. AND DON’T JUST GO BACK TO BUSINESS AFTER PASSING OUT.)


End file.
